Creative urges

[mrissa]

ellarien said something in comments a few days ago that made me want to respond in more than a comment, and then lj went down and I didn't end up doing it. Here's what she said, in response to something I said about leaving physics:

That resonates with me, in an odd way. About ten years ago, I was getting far more satisfaction out of writing than I was out of my research job, and I seriously considered giving it all up and trying to write full time. I actually spent six months doing each half-time, and then found a new research job where I was much happier. I've done less and less writing since then, and found that I can more or less pacify the creative urge by crocheting instead. It's interesting to hear from someone who took the other fork, as it were.

And what I want to say is: I don't apparently have a creative urge. I believe that some people do, that some people have the need to create something, and can pacify that need by creating a wide variety of things. I am not, however, in that category. I have a writing urge, specifically a fiction urge. Occasionally I also have a baking urge and a cooking urge. But not a generalized creative urge: if I have a fiction urge, making a pan of muffins won't help, and painting won't help, and I'm fairly convinced that other things wouldn't help, either.

I keep thinking I should learn to knit or crochet because, or so my hindbrain tells me, then I would know how to do something useful. (More likely then my hindbrain would reclassify knitting and crocheting as non-useful.) I have no intention to learn, however, because I don't want to give my brain another set of urges and another set of projects to fuss about finishing.

I'm wondering: how many of you have a need to make stuff and find it can be handled in a wide variety of ways depending on what you have readily available? And how many of you have one specific or a handful of specific things you feel the need to make? Does it feel significantly different to you to do one creative task than another, in terms of what it satisfies in your head?

Comments

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

The writing urge is definitely the dominant creative urge in my life, followed distantly by the music-making urge. I suppose this is an urge I've suffered from (in a good way) all of my life. Of course, life being what it is, I haven't been able to consistently scratch the itch that is writing until the last couple of years.

As a kid I wrote (badly) all the time, and I got the creative itch out by way of Role-Playing Games. During my first marriage I tried my hand at writing SF&F, but I was working in a vacuum. I lived in the boondocks and didn't know about such things as fandom for instance. I submitted a few stories, and received some very nice rejections, the kind that encouraged me to continue, but the pressures of my first marriage, and my (now ex) wife's complete and utter contempt for what I was trying to do forced me to set it aside (she didn't read, complained when I did, hated when I spent time at the typewriter, and thought RPGs were of the Devil). I scratched the creative itch by playing Bass Guitar in a rock-a-billy band and working at a theatre, doing tech and bit part acting, but it never completely satisfied. It was during this time period I convinced myself that writers were Not Like Me. No, they were a Special Golden Class of people who lived in far off places and had interesting lives. It was a defense mechanism designed to help me cope with the continually deteriorating situation that was my life.

After the divorce, I spent a lot of time working to clean up the mess that was my personal life. I started trying to write fiction again, but somehow convinced myself that I couldn't write dialogue, and stopped. I took up writing poetry seriously at this point (I had poked at it before) as a creative outlet, and lo, I managed to sell some pieces here and there. I realized that writers were people just like me. I started to poke my nose back into SF&F, just looking mind you, and saw the fringes of fandom becoming to me out there.

But I was too afraid to take the complete jump. It was too late for me, I was too old I told myself. I had too many other responsibilities I rationalized. The Midwesterner work ethic part of me said that writing wasn't real work, and I should be doing something productive. I fed the fear and lied to myself quit well.

I filled the empty creative space with Role-Playing, primarily as the GM, and created an intricate Secondary Fantasy World for my players to romp around in. I was not content to just create a world with monsters and treasure, no this world has a working economy, a large cast of NPCs of all walks of life with elaborate back stories for the players to interact with, Machiavellian politics, geo-political power plays, a mythic past and uncertain future. Yeah, you get the idea. And I was content for many years to let this be my creative outlet, designing this world and weaving stories for my players. It kept me from going bonkers, and it kept the creative juices going.

Then I was forced to withdraw from the workforce while I dealt with the re-alignment of my life. As my vision deteriorated, my desire to write fiction came back in force. This time I had a spouse (the wonderful and lovely careswen who not only supported my decision, but encouraged it and is my primary editor and first reader. It was also somewhere around this time I found fandom for real, and started making connections with other writers (who, as it turns out, are pretty much people like me. Well, not exactly like me, we're not clones after all, but you get the idea). Now I can't imagine a day when I don't write something.

I still role-play, but it's more recreational now, and I've switched back to being a player (for the first time in over 20 years) because I don't have the time or energy to GM anymore. I still play Bass Guitar recreationally (and might even try to do it professionally again someday), but writing is what I do, and a writer is how I identify myself.

I can't imagine any other endeavor scratching that itch or any career being as fulfilling.

Just Thoughts,
Michael

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It's amazing how much a life situation can and can't do to change a person fundamentally.